An ongoing review of politics and culture

After the jump, easily the coolest movie-related thing I’ve seen this year:

The promotional imagery for this film has been pretty phenomenal throughout. Whatever group is doing this deserves a raise, and all the work the studios can throw at it. (Though it should be noted that it probably doesn’t hurt having some really stunning raw material to work with, courtesy mostly of Christopher Nolan.)

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On Gawker they ran this saying that it was an outrage because it plays on September 11th imagery, which I don’t see at all. The commenters were all enflamed about it… it really surprised me. I guess I can see the similarity, but I can’t see getting all bent out of shape about it. Certainly theres no intent to harm, or intent to invoke that imagery, period.

It’s interesting to me that you guys don’t see the connection without it being suggested. It’s just the opposite for me. I think I’m less squeamish than most about using 9/11 in pop culture, but that’s the first thing that came to mind when I saw this ad. It left me confused as to what the ad was trying to say. It sure looks cool, though.

The absolute first thing I thought when I saw that image was “Holy cow, Batman just flew a plane into that skyscraper. I can’t believe they went there.”

On second viewing, it’s not a skyscraper, more of a tenement. Still, I can’t see how this could have been intended as anything other than a 9/11 image.

Maybe the very first guy who thought of it just thought “lets have the middle of a tall building be smashed in and on fire”, but surely one of the dozen or more people who must have worked on this thing prior to publication had to say “You know this is a 9/11 image, right?”

I am really, really looking forward to the time when people stop overreacting to 9/11— or at least, when discussing 9/11 is no longer an open-ended excuse for unfettered self-importance disguised as reverence.

It really is the Batman logo, superimposed over the structure of what looks to be a high rise hotel. The Joker is a nihilistic murderer, sort
of Ras Ghul 2.0. But clearly the 9/11 parallel is suggested. I’ll go see
it, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be unnerved by the fact that film, caused
Heath Ledger his life.

This is evoking 9/11 imagery in advertising to generate revenue for a Hollywood movie. I don’t even want to talk about it, since that’s what it was designed to do – get people to talk about it. But it’s pretty fucking lousy.